Piaget

• Reductionist Theory 


  Views behaviour from a simple perspective, failing to take into account the bigger picture. The theory ignores other important factors. The opposite argument to this is Holism viewing the whole, recognising the importance of seeing people as individuals and that one approach or theory cannot fully explain human behaviour.
• Describe


  Piaget found that the way that children thought grew as they got older. This inspired him to observe his own children and his friends observing how their thinking changed over time. Piaget used his results to develop his theory of cognitive development.

   
• The key features of Piaget’s theory. It has 4 stages
• The stages are invariant

  They do not change and children pass through them in the same order
• The stages are universal

  They are the same for all children everywhere.
• Piaget viewed children as little scientists who from the moment they are born are actively trying to find out about their environment.
• Schemas

  children have mental pictures of the world which help them to understand how to react to the world around them.
• Assimilation

  new information that the child encounters is merged into an existing schema.
• Accommodation

  A child encounters new information which results in either a new schema being formed or an existing schema being altered in some way.